Snowpocalypse

As I'm sure the entire world has heard, we had an insane snowstorm over the weekend. Said insane snowstorm was made even worse by the state/county's inability to properly deal with the snow. I could go on a HUGE long rant about the awful snow removal strategy in this area, but I'll try to be brief. Waiting for the snow to finish falling, THEN plowing is not a good strategy. Waiting 48 hours is an even worse idea. We had on NPR earlier and the Kojo Nnamde show was doing a segment on snow removal in our county, the neighboring county (where we just moved from) and DC. A guy from Maine who was travelling through the area called in and shared his snow plowing tips....really simple stuff to do to make the cleanup easier and faster. I hope the state of MD calls someone in Maine or Mass or PA to get some better ideas soon!! (But still, kudos to the snow removal crew that's out there working now with not enough equipment/people/experience with giant blizzards...I know there's only so much they can do with what they've got).

We did finally have a snowplow make 1 pass on our street. They didn't do much but sorta smooth out the ruts from the few cars that have braved the street, but I guess it's better than nothing. Josh and I made it out of the neighborhood in my car to run a couple errands earlier. Most of the roads, even main highways, were in bad shape. Everything was "passable" like they said on the radio, but it'd be pretty rough on a non 4WD/AWD car. We got brownies, crickets and cat food so we're all set for the snowstorm that's predicted for tomorrow (5-10 more inches...YAY). We have a plan to get Josh to work tomorrow, provided Metro is running and I should be good to either get myself in to work or work from home. My mind is just completely blown away by how paralyzed this whole region is. I hope it warms up and all the snow melts away soon!!

Other than the snow, I'm hanging in there. I feel fine, just a little cranky for being 95% confined to the house for 7+ days. I've been doing a lot of research on my options for the rest of my treatment. I found out that my insurance doesn't really like Hopkins, so I'll be getting my second opinion at UMD instead. They have two radiation clinics near where we live, so I'm going to set up an appointment with a radiation oncologist there. I've got a plan in my head that I'm feeling pretty comfortable with, I just want to see what a couple other doctors have to say and see if they agree with my plan. In the meantime, I'm just trying to think really positive thoughts that I WILL be in the large majority of Hodgkin's patients who are cured the first time around.

Here are a couple snow pictures. The snow on the picnic table (middle lump on the right) in the first picture was 34 inches deep. I measured it probably 6 hours before the snow stopped falling.